The UEFA Nations League.
It’s fun. It’s cute. It’s better than completely meaningless friendlies. But at the end of the day, it’s still a cookie cutter placeholder tournament with ZERO prestigiousness. Nations League takes place two months after the World Cup/Euro and right at the beginning of the club football season. How pumped up can national teams get?
It was fun to see Croatia paired with Spain and England in the inaugural installment only weeks after their World Cup Final run, however, with many A-squad players hurt, who knows how much the Vatreni really cared when they suffered their worst defeat ever: 6-0 to Spain.
However, after Euro 2020, Croatia will play the last two teams that knocked them out of a major tournament. Portugal at Euro 2016 and France at World Cup 2018. Both teams ended up winning those respective tournaments. Is Croatia ‘Goof Luck Chuck?’
Croatia are quickly getting put in the thick of things after their World Cup Final appearance. They will play England at Wembley this summer and then Portugal and France in Nations League.
No matter what happens, Croatia can definitely top this group. There’s no question about that. And they definitely will finish above Sweden, who will finish last. There’s tons of star power between these four teams, however, will Luka Modrić and Ivan Rakitić return after Euro 2020 concludes.
We can’t wait for Antoine Griezmann to be welcomed by the Croatian faithful when France plays in Zagreb, or wherever that game is played.
Amjooo. We can beat the divers France and the porkchops no problem. It’s ironic the last two tournaments we lost to Portugal and France. Now we have a chance of playing either of them. That’s if we get first in our group and beat England. Then play them again a few months later.
“The funny thing is that we will very likely be crossing paths with France or Portugal in the Euro2020 anyway.
Then a repeat in Nations League shortly afterward.”
We play Portugal this month in Qatar and France in Paris in June lol
@ante
Hvala bogu
Right now I don’t know how Italy can finish the seria a season in Italy, nothing is gonna he better soon there! They should think about trying to finish their season in the USA, they could never pull it together to make it work but there’s gonna be a lot of games behind closed doors… also this is their best race in years! And I think it’s epic brozo and inters to lose
I wonder how the Liverpool media can figure out how to blame Lovren for Chelsea FA loss?? When he wasn’t even in the squad.
Gazidis = Peder !!
Boban has more leadership in his pinky than all these mali po sranci.
Ready to defend all of our people around the world who are getting disrespected.
I would smash that Portuguese Fanook
ZDS!
Stoka
Greasman would be too scared to turn up in Zagreb
Little punce
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery my friends
I’ll bet the fans can’t wait for Griezmann to come to Zagreb. It will become a bigger story than you can be imagine. Hopefully they will have something waiting for him.
If they did that LEGO shit I would pray for euro to be cancelled
Now our “table cloths” demand respect
They can’t uglifiy em like that
There was one very nice one posted a little while back was like a half checkered deal
Very attractive
Are they going to continue with black theme for our away kits?
I heard the new ones will be grey and black, which sounds pretty cool.
Lots of teams are adopting the checkered kits, so we’d better go full checkers with BOTH our home and away kits (to remind everyone who the OG checkered team is).
I see it the other way.
Even without Ronaldo, Bruno Fernandes Joao Felix and Bernardo Silva are as good as anything we’ve got.
Pogba, Griezmann and most of the French team are overrated to me.
Mbappe’s the only guy I rate.
No suprise with this draw. We always get a difficult group. Getting the current Euro champions and the cheaters France will be very interesting. I want revenge from last Euro’s and the final. As far as Sweden goes, they are an average to a little bit above avergae side. I can see us getting results against Portugal for sure. They’re so overrated. Once Ronaldo retires after this year. They will be minimum average. France on the other hand will be tough. We can get top two in the group.
@ Niko,
I’ve seen the kits. Not going to be the QR code. Hvala Bogu.
Fuck them all.
Bring it on.
You want to be the best and have the reputation as a great football nation, then this is how you do it.
Bring them all on.
Kova hurt ….ankle,at least it’s not his knee
My thoughts on this group are that we’re either going to top it or do pretty badly. And that’s really going to depend on how the competition is viewed by the federation, the coaches, and the players. This last time around against Spain and England, they didn’t seem to care in the first two matches and it showed. Then in the second two games they really went for it. If it wasn’t for injuries to both fullbacks, they probably would have won the group instead of getting last place.
As for what our team is going to look like. This is almost definitely Rakitic’s last tournament as he said so himself. He’d have to have a change of heart, which is possible. I think Luka being done would depend on how we do in this Euro and what he wants his last tournament to be. Maybe he’s done if we have an average tournament and feels we can’t top the World Cup or we do well and he leaves after a good showing. Or doing well/badly will motivate him to stick around. I know he’s said he will keep playing for Croatia until they don’t want him anymore, or something along those lines. I think this Euro probably could and maybe should be the last for Lovren and Vida. They are still decent, but honestly, some of the younger guys are basically already around their level and will only get better. Duje Caleta-Car has been starting for Marseille. Nikola Katic is doing well at Rangers and will eventually play for a better team. Filip Benkovic just needs to get consistent play time before we know if he’s a national team starter or just an injury prone backup. Josko Gvardiol will be 20 by the next World Cup. By this time he will either be on a bigger team and hopefully getting consistent play time or he will be Dinamo’s starter. I hope he doesn’t leave too early as he’s probably our biggest talent next to Antonio Marin right now. There’s also tons of others who could turn out well like Bosko Sutalo (now at Atalanta), Marin Pongracic, Bartol Franjic, Josip Sutalo, Mario Vuskovic, and even Dino Peric is still only 25. We’ll be fine at CB for years to come.
I’ve said many times the hardest spot to replace is going to be Sime Vrsaljko at RB. Jedvaj is usually alright there, but he’s naturally at CB. Tin Hrvoj is probably the top talent in that position and his potential is not as high as I’d like right now. Of course there could be someone I don’t really know about or something that progresses a lot in a short time, but we’ll just have to see.
Any roumors on our home kits this year, other than that QR code thing that has been floating around?
The funny thing is that we will very likely be crossing paths with France or Portugal in the Euro2020 anyway.
Then a repeat in Nations League shortly afterward.
Broz Kovacic Vlasic can carry the midfield just fine
Even Pašalić may come up another level still
I’m sure the boys want another crack at France
Even tho luka and prob raketa he gone
Tho If raketa stayed after luka being gone
He could lead another charge with the younger bucks in support
Even tho we will take a huge hit with luka leaving
Our midfield still looks pretty solid
Maybe our forwards become our strong point for a bit and defenders maybe catch up
All I know is I don’t see us having a massive drop off as some might have thought
There’s no fun in beating the Swedens and Icelands of the world.
Nice!
Sweden game will be lame.
Welp, we got the hardest group in my opinion. Portugal, France, and Sweden. They will be interesting match-ups at least.
Portugal
France
Sweden
Croatia
Well we are in a very hard group and it’s disgusting that we have to look at those ugly French again.
Playing England a lot isn’t a bad thing.
It continues a pretty good rivalry, and since England thinks it is the center of the footballing universe… We become the team all other countries cheer for.
England games get probably the best worldwide coverage too, so the whole world can watch (like they did when they saw us beat them in the World Cup semis).
It’s just a bit boring having to play England so many times in a two-year span. But better them than a nauseating team like Switzerland.
Suti Ilija
Gosh imagine if we get Engerand AGAIN.. we will be playing them so many times